The Djaru people are an Aboriginal Australian people of the southern Kimberley region of Western Australia .
43-635: Djaru is a member of the Ngumbin language family , and is related to Walmajarri . The Djaru people ranged along Margaret River as far as the Mary River Junction . Their land took in the headwaters of Christmas Creek, ran eastward to Cummins Range, Sturt Creek Station up to the border with the Northern Territory . Its northern boundary lay in the vicinity of the Nicholson Station homestead, and
86-560: A complicated gender system, diverge from it. Proto-Pama–Nyungan may have been spoken as recently as about 5,000 years ago, much more recently than the 40,000 to 60,000 years indigenous Australians are believed to have been inhabiting Australia . How the Pama–Nyungan languages spread over most of the continent and displaced any pre-Pama–Nyungan languages is uncertain; one possibility is that language could have been transferred from one group to another alongside culture and ritual . Given
129-433: A kangaroo' (Free pronouns also display an ergative-absolutive case system) The possible ways to modify a noun into ergative case are with the following suffixes: -ŋgu , -gu , -lu , -gulu , -du , -u . The use of each morpheme depends, of course, on the immediately preceding phonological environment. For Pama-Nyungan languages generally it is common that they will take an ergative-absolutive case marking for nouns, and
172-527: A language that are spoken between certain family members (typically a married man and his mother-in-law) – such registers are common throughout native Australian languages. The population of Djaru speakers has greatly diminished since the late 19th century when white settlers entered the Djaru region and massacred its inhabitants. The Djaru people have since adopted certain aspects of western living (working and living on farmsteads and in towns) and have moved away from
215-475: A mid- Holocene expansion of Pama–Nyungan from the Gulf Plains of northeastern Australia. Pama–Nyungan languages generally share several broad phonotactic constraints: single-consonant onsets, a lack of fricatives, and a prohibition against liquids (laterals and rhotics) beginning words. Voiced fricatives have developed in several scattered languages, such as Anguthimri , though often the sole alleged fricative
258-550: A nominative-accusative case marking for pronouns. There are very few verbs in Djaru (around forty). Bound pronouns can attach to Djaru verbs and they display a nominative-accusative declension (Djaru thus displays split ergativity, as its nouns and free pronouns follow an ergative-absolutive pattern). Verbs conjugate according to the following aspects: past, continuative past, past narrative, present, continuative present, purposive, continuative purposive, hortative, continuative hortative, imperative, continuative imperative, verbid. In
301-536: A noun in intransitive subject position (or transitive object position) is X , then it will be Y in a transitive subject position. Examples of the ergative-absolutive system for nouns in Djaru can be found in Tsunoda 1981: mawun man- ABS jan-an go- PRES mawun jan-an man-ABS go-PRES 'a man goes' mawun-du man- ERG ɟaɟi kangaroo- ABS lan-an spear- PRES mawun-du ɟaɟi lan-an man-ERG kangaroo-ABS spear-PRES 'a man spears
344-573: A site called the "Goat Yard" at Denison Downs. A police party, led by Constable J.J. Cooney, engaged ostensibly in a search for the culprit, was in the Walmajarri area from 12 to 31 October at the time of the reported slaughter. The second incident, soon afterward, took place at the former Denison Downs homestead on the Sturt Creek Station, in a site referred to as Chuall Pool where many Djaru, together with Walmajarri, were murdered. The victims were
387-435: A stockman, a surveyor, a miner, and a Chinaman at Ruby Plains Station . Native tradition holds that Pilmer rode out in a buggy and rounded up a mob of Djaru to get them to dig a "well". Once that work was completed, he then strung them all up on a walarri gum tree and buried them in the well. The place thereby earned the name of Hangman's Creek. The primary victims of that particular slaughter were, according to Norman Tindale,
430-473: A taxonomic term. The Pama–Nyungan family accounts for most of the geographic spread, most of the Aboriginal population, and the greatest number of languages. Most of the Pama–Nyungan languages are spoken by small ethnic groups of hundreds of speakers or fewer. Many languages, either due to disease or elimination of their speakers, have become extinct, and almost all remaining ones are endangered in some way. Only in
473-534: A word's meaning. Djaru does not contain any of the fricatives (e.g. [f], [v], [ʃ], [ð]) or affricates (e.g. [pf], [ts]); these sound types are rarely found in any Australian Aboriginal languages. Djaru consonants form clusters of no more than two phonemes. /ɽ/ can be heard as a flap [ɽ] or a glide [ɻ]. Djaru, like most Australian languages, has only three vowel sounds (a high-front vowel, high-back vowel, and low vowel), each vowel varies considerably according to its immediate phonetic environment. Djaru includes
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#1732890558619516-429: Is /ɣ/ and is analysed as an approximant /ɰ/ by other linguists. An exception is Kala Lagaw Ya , which acquired both fricatives and a voicing contrast in them and in its plosives from contact with Papuan languages . Several of the languages of Victoria allowed initial /l/ , and one— Gunai —also allowed initial /r/ and consonant clusters /kr/ and /pr/ , a trait shared with the extinct Tasmanian languages across
559-498: Is a merism : it is derived from the two end-points of the range, the Pama languages of northeast Australia (where the word for "man" is pama ) and the Nyungan languages of southwest Australia (where the word for "man" is nyunga ). The other language families indigenous to the continent of Australia are often referred to, by exclusion, as non-Pama–Nyungan languages, though this is not
602-426: Is relatively free (again a common trait of Aboriginal Australian languages) and has the ability to split up noun phrases. The Djaru language has a relatively small number of verbs, as compared to most languages, and thus utilizes a system of ' preverbs ' and complex verbs to compensate. Djaru also has an avoidance language . Avoidance languages, sometimes known as 'mother-in-law languages', are special registers within
645-457: The Lower Burdekin languages . A few more inclusive groups that have been proposed, such as Northeast Pama–Nyungan (Pama–Maric), Central New South Wales , and Southwest Pama–Nyungan , appear to be geographical rather than genealogical groups. Bowern & Atkinson (2012) use computational phylogenetics to calculate the following classification: According to Nicholas Evans ,
688-597: The comparative method . In his last published paper from the same collection, Ken Hale describes Dixon's scepticism as an erroneous phylogenetic assessment which is "so bizarrely faulted, and such an insult to the eminently successful practitioners of Comparative Method Linguistics in Australia, that it positively demands a decisive riposte." In the same work Hale provides unique pronominal and grammatical evidence (with suppletion) as well as more than fifty basic-vocabulary cognates (showing regular sound correspondences) between
731-402: The "well-digging" story, it was inferred, cannot have been accurate since the indicated well had been constructed before then. Otherwise, the archaeological study confirmed the likelihood that police had massacred an unknown number of Aboriginal people at this second site. Source: Tindale 1974 , pp. 240–241 Djaru language Djaru (Tjaru) is a Pama–Nyungan language spoken in
774-580: The Bass Strait. At the time of the European arrival in Australia, there were some 300 Pama–Nyungan languages divided across three dozen branches. What follows are the languages listed in Bowern (2011b) and Bowern (2012) ; numbers in parentheses are the numbers of languages in each branch. These vary from languages so distinct they are difficult to demonstrate as being in the same branch, to near-dialects on par with
817-632: The Margaret River Djaru. In September 1922, two settlers, Joseph Condren and Tim O'Sullivan, were murdered at Billiluna homestead. According to one account, a Guluwaring man Goose Hill near Kununurra , known as Banjo, seized a gun and shot first Sullivan, and then Condren, while the latter two were branding cattle with the assistance of several natives. The reason given for the murder was Banjo acting to revenge himself on Sullivan who had taken away his wife, Topsy. The other blacks, who tried to intervene, were held at bay by Banjo, who threatened them with
860-591: The Proto-Northern-and-Middle Pamic (pNMP) family of the Cape York Peninsula on the Australian northeast coast and Proto-Ngayarta of the Australian west coast, some 3,000 km apart (as well as from many other languages), to support the Pama–Nyungan grouping, whose age he compares to that of Proto-Indo-European . Bowern offered an alternative to Dixon's binary phylogenetic-tree model based in
903-457: The above preverbs come out with the following meanings: jud sitting + wandiɲ fall = jud wandiɲ sit down jud + wandiɲ = {jud wandiɲ} sitting {} fall {} {sit down} dirib Pama%E2%80%93Nyungan languages The Pama–Nyungan languages are the most widespread family of Australian Aboriginal languages , containing 306 out of 400 Aboriginal languages in Australia. The name "Pama–Nyungan"
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#1732890558619946-495: The central inland portions of the continent do Pama–Nyungan languages remain spoken vigorously by the entire community. The Pama–Nyungan family was identified and named by Kenneth L. Hale , in his work on the classification of Native Australian languages. Hale's research led him to the conclusion that of the Aboriginal Australian languages, one relatively closely interrelated family had spread and proliferated over most of
989-519: The closest relative of Pama–Nyungan is the Garawan language family , followed by the small Tangkic family. He then proposes a more distant relationship with the Gunwinyguan languages in a macro-family he calls Macro-Pama–Nyungan . However, this has yet to be demonstrated to the satisfaction of the linguistic community. In his 1980 attempt to reconstruct Proto-Australian, R. M. W. Dixon reported that he
1032-489: The coast where they had been collected by the distant Jawi . Massacres of Aboriginal people in the Kimberleys were commonplace as the land was cleared for settlement and pastoral stations. An early massacre at Hangman's Creek, otherwise undocumented in colonial archives, remains undated but is associated with the name of Sergeant Richard Henry Pilmer. Djaru had been responsible for killing in separate incidents four outsiders,
1075-482: The continent, while approximately a dozen other families were concentrated along the North coast. Evans and McConvell describe typical Pama–Nyungan languages such as Warlpiri as dependent-marking and exclusively suffixing languages which lack gender, while noting that some non-Pama–Nyungan languages such as Tangkic share this typology and some Pama–Nyungan languages like Yanyuwa , a head-marking and prefixing language with
1118-420: The daily practice of certain traditional ways of living. As a result, the Djaru language faces the combined pressures of a decrease in speaker population, an increased reliance of English among its speakers, as well as a white Australian government that has traditionally stood against the use or education of any original Australian languages. Word-initial phonemes in Djaru may be any consonant or semi-vowel with
1161-721: The differences between the Scandinavian languages . Down the east coast, from Cape York to the Bass Strait , there are: Continuing along the south coast, from Melbourne to Perth: Up the west coast: Cutting inland back to Paman, south of the northern non-Pama–Nyungan languages, are Encircled by these branches are: Separated to the north of the rest of Pama–Nyungan is Some of inclusions in each branch are only provisional, as many languages became extinct before they could be adequately documented. Not included are dozens of poorly attested and extinct languages such as Barranbinja and
1204-401: The exception of alveolar taps /ɾ/ or the palatal laterals /ʎ/. A word can end with any phoneme except for a semi-vowel. Stress occurs on the initial syllable of a word, and on the initial syllable of a second morpheme. A stressed syllable tends to also be the highest in pitch, but stress in Djaru, as with pitch, is phonologically irrelevant. That is, stress and pitch have no essential bearing on
1247-467: The features that would allow for a phylogenetic approach. This finding functioned as a kind of rejoinder to Dixon's scepticism. Our work puts to rest once and for all the claim that Australian languages are so exceptional that methods used elsewhere in the world do not work on this continent . The methods presented here have been used with Bantu, Austronesian, Indo-European, and Japonic languages (among others). Pama-Nyungan languages, like all languages, show
1290-655: The following table's ergative variations to the English pronouns, they , them , she , her , etc.). Djaru includes a unique word class (absent in most languages) known as the preverb class. Preverbs have two uses in Djaru: firstly they may be used similarly to adjectives in that they modify verbs but in doing so create new semantic units, secondly they may be used like nouns when attached with nominal suffixes. Some examples of preverbs: jud ('sitting'), dirib ('camping out'), wuɽug ('finishing'). When combined with verbs,
1333-482: The following word classes: noun, free pronoun, adverb, preverb, verb, particle, interjection. Nouns in Djaru are modified if they are instrumental, locative, recipients, or in ergative position. The term 'ergative' refers to a category within ergative-absolutive declension wherein objects of transitive sentences and subjects of intransitive sentences are not morphologically equivalent to subjects of intransitive sentences. That is, in an ergative-absolutive language, if
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1376-416: The following: He believes that Lower Murray (five families and isolates), Arandic (2 families, Kaytetye and Arrernte), and Kalkatungic (2 isolates) are small Sprachbunds . Dixon's theories of Australian language diachrony have been based on a model of punctuated equilibrium (adapted from the eponymous model in evolutionary biology ) wherein he believes Australian languages to be ancient and to have—for
1419-915: The headwaters of the Ord River above the Dixon Range, and including the areas east of Alice Downs as far as Halls Creek and the Margaret River gorge. In Norman Tindale 's estimation the total land range encompassed something like 13,000 square miles (34,000 km). The area is now known as the Kutjungka Region . The Djaru, like the Gija , much admired the composite spears, fitted with barbed pegs, of their southern neighbours, fashioned from mulga hardwood and witjuti bush shrubs and to obtain them would exchange them for stone knives and pressure-flaked spear blades ( tjimbala ), and pearl shells which filtered down from
1462-476: The most part—remained in unchanging equilibrium with the exception of sporadic branching or speciation events in the phylogenetic tree . Part of Dixon's objections to the Pama–Nyungan family classification is the lack of obvious binary branching points which are implicitly or explicitly entailed by his model. However, the papers in Bowern & Koch (2004) demonstrate about ten traditional groups, including Pama–Nyungan, and its sub-branches such as Arandic, using
1505-559: The principles of dialect geography . Rather than discarding the notion that multiple subgroups of languages are genetically related due to the presence of multiple dialectal epicentres arranged around stark isoglosses , Bowern proposed that the non-binary-branching characteristics of Pama–Nyungan languages are precisely what we would expect to see from a language continuum in which dialects are diverging linguistically but remaining in close geographic and social contact. Bowern offered three main advantages of this geographical-continuum model over
1548-529: The punctuated equilibrium model: First, there is a place for both divergence and convergence as processes of language change; punctuated equilibrium stresses convergence as the main mechanism of language change in Australia. Second, it makes Pama-Nyungan look much more similar to other areas of the world. We no longer have to assume that Australia is a special case. Third, and related to this, we do not have to assume in this model that there has been intensive diffusion of many linguistic elements that in other parts of
1591-421: The relationship of cognates between groups, it seems that Pama–Nyungan has many of the characteristics of a sprachbund , indicating the antiquity of multiple waves of culture contact between groups. Dixon in particular has argued that the genealogical trees found with many language families do not fit in the Pama–Nyungan family. Using computational phylogenetics , Bouckaert, Bowern & Atkinson (2018) posit
1634-614: The rifle. According to indigenous traditions, the first massacre that ensued in retaliation for the killings took place at Kaningarra between wells 48 and 49 on the Canning Stock Route . The incident is undocumented and relies on the testimony of the three sons of Riwarri, the only adult survivor. In this account, a police punitive expedition came across an encampment in which Aboriginal people were cooking camel meat, and they kept shooting into it until they ran short of ammunition. Those who survived were led off tethered by neckchains to
1677-430: The south-eastern Kimberley region of Western Australia . As with most Pama-Nyungan languages, Djaru includes single, dual and plural pronoun numbers. Djaru also includes sign-language elements in its lexicon (a common trait of Aboriginal Australian languages generally). Nouns in Djaru do not include gender classes, and apart from inflections, words are formed through roots, compounding or reduplication. Word order in Djaru
1720-458: The survivors of the Kaningarra massacre. A recent archaeological study of two sites, identified by the tribal custodians, as the goat yard and the women and children's site, turned up ample evidence of calcinated bone fragments that were the residue of exposure to prolonged extreme heat, which was created by a fire accelerant like kerosene wholly atypical of hunter-gatherer hearths. On the other hand,
1763-448: The vast majority of cases verbs are modified with suffixes, and all conjugated verbs involve the root + suffix (i.e. there are no conjugations that represent the verb root on its own). As is suggested in Blake 1987, the ergative pronoun markings in Djaru may be a relatively new feature of the language, since the system bears few of the irregularities that are present in most languages (compare
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1806-511: The world are resistant to borrowing (such as shared irregularities). Additional methods of computational phylogenetics employed by Bowern and Atkinson uncovered that there were more binary-branching characteristics than initially thought. Instead of acceding to the notion that Pama–Nyungan languages do not share the characteristics of a binary-branching language family, the computational methods revealed that inter-language loan rates were not as atypically high as previously imagined and do not obscure
1849-473: Was unable to find anything that reliably set Pama–Nyungan apart as a valid genetic group. Fifteen years later, he had abandoned the idea that Australian or Pama–Nyungan were families. He now sees Australian as a Sprachbund ( Dixon 2002 ). Some of the small traditionally Pama–Nyungan families which have been demonstrated through the comparative method , or which in Dixon's opinion are likely to be demonstrable, include
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